“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. – J Robert Oppenheimer.

Comparison Of Industrial Electricity Prices In The EU

I published this chart a couple of days ago, which showed how high electricity prices were for UK steelmakers. It prompted the question as to why Germany’s prices were not just as high, given their renewables agenda.

The simple answer is that Germany does not pass on these extra costs to the larger energy consumers.

DECC publish international comparisons of electricity prices for industrial users, split into four categories:

We can see that UK prices are consistently above the EU15 median, but particularly so as consumers get bigger. In contrast, German prices are higher than ours for small users, but get progressively less, as you go up the scale.

Interestingly, Italy’s prices are also comparatively high, which may partly explain their economic struggles in recent years.

Ironically, a report just out from the German research institute Prognos is warning that EU proposals to tighten up the Emissions Trading Scheme could spell the death knell for the German steel industry, as GWPF report:

The planned reform of CO2 emissions trading in Europe threatens hundreds of thousands of jobs in Germany. This is the conclusion of a study by the research institute Prognos and commissioned by the German Steel Association. “The industrial business model of the German economy is at stake,” warned association president Hans Jürgen Kerkhoff.

A significantly tougher Emissions Trading Scheme, as envisaged by Brussels from 2021 onwards, could in a few years lead to a rapidly progressing de-industrialisation in important parts of the value chain since nothing like it exists anywhere else in the world. “The consequences for the German economy would be grave,” Kerkhoff said.

According to the Prognos study, production and employment in the German steel industry would collapse by two thirds by 2030. “Add to that employment losses in upstream and downstream industries,” the study says. And that’s not all: “The consequences go far beyond the industrial value chain,” study author Jan Limbers from Prognos. The researcher sees a total of 380,000 jobs at significant risk, mostly in the services sector, e.g. in retail and in the hospitality industry or in logistics and finance. “Businesses and households will have less income for consumption and investment,” said Limbers who also sees a decline in gross domestic product of 30 billion euros.

Sadly the South Wales steel problem may make things even worse in the UK. The Gupta family, whose rescue bid is getting much airtime on the BBC, is heavily into farming renewable subsidies. They already own an old coal-fired power station at Uskmouth, for the purpose of converting it to biomass, and have a lot of money in proposals for Tidal Lagoons:

Apparently the Teeside scheme collapse is going to cost Air Products (or probably other people) £ 770m: a serious loss. Air Products were also fronting the White Rose CCS project, not a good record on Teeside!

Paul the Eurostats info are due to be updated in May 2016
Your graphs show costs for steelmakers
but their 2015 graph is all industrial customers from their Electricity_price_statistics page2015 graph eg Swden pays 6c/KWh UK pays 13c, but a small part of the UK cost is tax whereas say in Italy 7c of the 15c is tax so I wonder if they claim that back